Because this thread was about the companies taking art feeding it into their machine a D claiming not to have stolen it.

Then you compared that to clicking a link.

By that logic I can sell anything I download from the web while also claiming credit for it, right?

Downloading to view != downloading to fuel my business.

Yes copies were made. The files were downloaded, one way or another (even as a hash, or whatever digital asset they claim to translate them into) then fed to their machines.

If I go into a Ford plant, take pictures of their equipment, then use those to make my own machines, it’s still IP theft, even if I didn’t walk out with the machine.

Make all the excuses you want, you’re supporting the theft of other people’s life’s work then trying to claim it’s ethical.

The fact that folks can identify the source of various parts of the output, and that intact watermarks have shown up, shows that it doesn’t work like you think it does.

No, you used it to inform your style.

You didn’t drop his art on to a screenprinter, smash someone else’s art on top, then try to sell t-shirts.

Trying to compare any of this to how one, individual, human learns is such a wildly inaccurate way to justify stealing a someone’s else’s work product.

Yes, it was.

One human artist can, over a life time, learn from a few artists to inform their style.

These AI setups are telling ALL the art from ALL the artists and using them as part of a for profit business.

There is no ethical stance for letting billion dollar tech firms hoover up all the art ever created to the try and remix it for profit.